Over the past thirty years, compositional practices in the field of experimental and research-based music have undergone profound transformations. These changes are due in large part to new technologies, as well as to the gradual dissemination and standardization of extended performance techniques developed since the post-World War II avant-garde. Sound is increasingly conceived not as the final result of operations performed on isolated parameters, but as the organic integration of acoustic materials—materials that often resist symbolic representation and clear analytical categorization.

This shift has given rise to a wide range of compositional and performative approaches that are now broadly practiced, yet still lack systematic study and a comprehensive theoretical framework. To this must be added the growing importance of practices related to new instrument building and amplification, where, in recent years, artistic creation has often merged with the DIY (“do-it-yourself”) culture of makerspaces. This has led to the development of hybrid instruments, expanded through the incorporation of electromechanical and electronic devices.

In parallel, recent advances in computer-aided orchestration and artificial intelligence have opened up further scenarios, rendering increasingly obsolete the more or less codified techniques that have defined orchestration in the Western tradition from the 18th to the early 20th century. At the same time, the need to formalize pedagogical approaches dedicated to complex sound and its practical applications is becoming ever more urgent.

The aim of this conference is to foster dialogue among those who create, study, and teach the creation of music, offering a space for exchange that brings together the many perspectives shaping today’s and tomorrow’s research-based musical languages. The main topics of the conference are:

Performance techniques on instruments in relation to research-based music
Organology and new instrument making
Techniques and practices of complex sound orchestration
Computer-assisted orchestration

· Semantics of Timbre and Complex Sound

Creative practices of sound amplification and diffusion in both low- and high-fidelity contexts
Pedagogy of orchestration with complex sound

The whole conference is streamed on Teams. For info: maurizio.azzan@conservatoriomantova.com

PROGRAMME

Wednesday 11 June 2025

09:30-10:00

Institutional Welcome and Opening Remarks

10:00-11:30

Giulia Accornero (Yale University)

Timbre? Perceptual Learning Beyond Parametrical Thinking

- break -

12.00-12:30

Luca Guidarini (Conservatorio di Mantova)

When the Sketches are Sounds Themselves: On the Maquette in Mixed Music Composition

12:30-13:00

Fabio Machiavelli (Conservatorio di Mantova)

From Musical Instrument to Instrumental Apparatus: Implications for Composers, Performers and Researchers

13:00-13:30

Marco De Martino (Conservatorio della Spezia)

Sound as Dramaturgical Presence: Residual Instrumentality and Spatial Tension

- lunch break -

15:30-16:15

Maurizio Azzan (Conservatorio di Mantova) & Ingrid Pustijanac (Università di Pavia-Cremona)

Complex Sound Orchestration: A first Overview of Some Contemporary Practices

16:15-16:45

Michele Leggieri (Università di Pavia-Cremona)

Prepared String Instruments in Mauro Lanza’s Compositional Practice

- break -

17:15-18:45

Robert Hasegawa (Schulich School of Music of McGill University)

Analyzing Contemporary Orchestration Practices

Thursday 12 June 2025

10:00-11:30

Nathalie Hérold (Sorbonne Université)

Analyzing Timbre and Orchestration in Today’s Instrumental Music

- break -

12.00-13.30

Computer Assisted Orchestration and Beyond.

Round table with Carmine Emanuele Cella (University of California, Berkeley), Daniele Ghisi (Conservatorio di Torino) e Yan Maresz (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris)

Moderator: Ingrid Pustijanac (Università di Pavia-Cremona)

- lunch break -

15.30-16:15

Andrés Gutiérrez Martínez (Schulich School of Music of McGill University) & Chiara Percivati (Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, University of Antwerp, and Orpheus Institute)

Mapping a Sound Space of Bass Clarinet Multiphonics

16:15-17:00

Stylianos Dimou (University of Bergen)

The Hybrid Score: Mapping Complexity Across Sound, Space, and System

- break -

17.30-18.00

Annalisa Liuzzi (Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia – Fondazione Reggio Children), Eloisa di Rocco (Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia – Fondazione Reggio Children) & Alice Cusi (Conservatorio di Milano)

The Sensitive Dimension of Sound. An Investigation into the Identities of Sound through the Exploration of Waste Materials.

18.00-18.30

Closing discussion

Sounds of Today

Il Conservatorio Campiani

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International

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